09/11/2010

Ever wonder how coincidental it was that Tom Sully happened to die a week before shipping out? I'm no conspiracy theorist, but you have to wonder.

6 years before the start of Avatar

“Colonel, look at this.”

His ever present coffee cup in his hand, Colonel Miles Quaritch leaned over the lieutenant’s shoulder.She was looking at the passenger manifest for the ISV Venture Star, which was due to launch in the next ten Earth days and arrive at Pandora in in5 years, 9 months, 22 days.

“Another load of those science pukes, I see,” Quaritch scoffed.“What do we have this time?”

While it took years to travel from Earth to Pandora, communication was instant.Quaritch had mixed feelings about this.If travel was faster, then Pandora would be settled by now, the Na’vi dead or corralled on reservations, but if that were the case, then he’d be out of a job. Mostly.There would still be the wildlife to deal with, but if you blasted a firebreak big enough, it could keep the critters away. With space travel as slow as it was, though, he definitely had a job and a very good one, but there were a lot of irritations he had to put up with, not the least of which was this “puppet show” called the Avatar program.

The lieutenant folded her arms across her chest and leaned back, smiling.She knew how Quaritch thought. Neither of them were actually Marines anymore, or Army or anything else.They were SecOps with a paramilitary contractor hired by RDA.But they liked to call themselves by their former ranks.At one time, Quaritch had been a Marine.A real Marine.So had she.And they thought in military terms.

They gave themselves the illusion they were still warriors, and indeed, for the most part they were. When you come as a hired gun to a hostile planet and try to bulldoze everything, people and things are going to shoot back.Good enough excuse for a firefight in Quaritch’s opinion.

Bonuses and promotions were up to Quaritch and he or she who made Quaritch happy got the most bonuses and promotions. Quaritch was all about power – power over RDA, power over the Avatar program—and information was power.He’d been on Pandora for 25 years – since the first recon.This was his empire.

“Corporal Sully was shot in an ambush in Venezuela,” the lieutenant said. “He’s in a wheelchair.He can’t walk.Had a pretty good service record – he was up for sergeant. He’s Tom Sully’s twin brother.You know --- identical genes maybe?”

Quaritch squinted, frowned, thought, then stood up straight.He stared jut jawed out the window.It was raining, the acid water sheeting down on the windows of the observation deck.Beyond the electrified fence and the razor wire, shit lurked out there that would just love to kill Quaritch and every human being there very very slowly.Even as he watched, a careless security guard who was more interested in his raincoat than paying attention, was snatched up by one of those banshees and the monster flapped away before anyone could get of a round of fire.Well, someone that stupid deserved to die.

“What do we know about this Corporal Sully?”Quaritch asked.He made a mental note to get the dead man’s name, write a canned letter of sympathy to his family and smirked to think how Selfridge’s head would explode that the Company would have to pay another death claim.That was their largest personnelexpense --- massive life insurance claims to survivors.It was one of the only ways you could get a guy with a family out to Pandora in the first place.

“Disability benefits,”the lieutenant read, “We know that’s a load of crap ---no family to speak of – picks up occasional odd job, mostly keeps to himself.Bet he drinks himself to death or puts a gun in his mouth before another year passes.”

“I like it,” Quaritch said. “Maybe this Jake Sully would like his legs back.He ain’t gonna afford the surgery on vet benefits and they ain’t gonna give it to him for a thank you for your service.That’s why we’re all out here, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Colonel watched as the sky darkened.It was midday and it shouldn’t be that dark, but thick, oily clouds loomed over Hell’s Gate and the strip mine nearby.That meant only one thing –mining ops would be suspended and all personnel escorted back by the “suits”.When the weather was like that, things seemed to take advantage of the storms to harass the personnel.Quaritch hoped in vain that the wildlife would find humans hard to digest, but no, the animals were quite happy with their occasional snacks.

“A recon Marine in an Avatar body,” he mused. “I guess we’d have to get this Dr. Sully out of the way first.”

“Sir, there are a couple of guys who rotated back—can’t find work, you know,and they’re sick and they’re about out of money.Maybe we could toss them a little work.”

A slight smile tugged at the corner of Quaritch’s mouth. His face was scarred from an attack his first day on Pandora and the smile make him look slightly insane.His employer, Blackwater was not RDA – it contracted to RDA for security on Pandora.RDA had a tendency to think that it controlled Blackwater, but since the last 20th century, events had often proved otherwise.Unknown to Parker Selfridge, the new administrator of the mining operation on Pandora, Quaritch had his own means of communicating with Earth and an agenda that did not often jibe with the Corporation’s.

“Get this Dr. Sully out of the way, give the job to his broke down brother, ship him out here—I like it.We could use someone with some balls in that bullshit avatar program.Does he have family members to get in the way?”

The lieutenant’s fingers flew over the screen.

“Looks like the brother was the last family he had.There might be an aunt somewhere but I can’t find any recent record .”

“Good,” Quaritch said. “If an accident should happen to Dr. Sully, like, right before he’s supposed to leave, there’s nothing to prevent this Jake Sully from taking over his contract is there? Make it happen.”

The Lieutenant quickly keyed in an encrypted message and sent it.

“What are you going to tell Selfridge?” she wondered.Quaritch made a disparaging noise.

“Nothing.We’ll all act surprised.What a tragedy.And Augustine doesn’t need to find out til the Venture Star gets here. I mean, what is she gonna do about it anyway?Can’t stick someone else inan Avatar anyway, so she’ll just have to deal with it. Business as usual, Lieutenant, business as usual for a couple of years. “

He smiled.A recon Marin in an Avatar body.Chalk one up for our side, he thought.

08/14/2010

(Trudy waits at the "shack" while Mo'at and the Na'vi try unsuccessfully to transfer Grace's consciousness into her avatar)

The Na’vi were very interested in the operations of the shack and the entire linking process . They knew about the dreamwalkers, at least the general idea, but had never seen the process itself. Norm described the concepts in Na'vi, and they nodded sagely as he explained it. At first Trudy wondered if they would get it, so to speak, but then, these were people who could literally plug into another animal's brain, or even that of a tree and understand it.

No wonder they had no need of RDA’s science.Whatever so called advancements Earth had, they were nothing compared to what the Na’vi lived on a daily basis

Tsu’tey was particularly curious about the Samson.Trudy showed the warriors the door gun and the missels.

“Like arrows,”Tsu’tey observed.“You have this many.When they are gone,then you have no weapons.”

“That is pretty much how that works,”Trudy agreed.

“So skypeople only have so many----what you call these?”

“Bombs?Bullets?Yes.Only so many.”

“How many sky people?”

Trudy was sitting on the edge of the cargo bay, one foot drawn up with her hands linked around her knee, the other foot dangling down, as if she explained aerodynamics and ordance to 10 foot tall blue people every day.Tsu’tey and his warriors were inspecting her Samson.

“Hmm.I dunno.Norm?How many in the science department?”

Norm thought a minute.“There are about 6 other avatar drivers---dreamwalkers---and maybe 20 science staff?Couple hundred sec ops – maybe the same number of miners.Not more than 300.”

He translated that concept into the 8 based math system used by the Na’vi.Tsu’tey pondered this.

“There are many more times that Na’vi,”he said simply.

Trudy shrugged and grinned.“That’s why Quaritch---I mean the Jarhead clan leader—is shitting his britches.You guys outnumber us .I mean forget about the Na’vi, just the freakin’ animal life around here is dangerous enough.”

Norm translated that phrase as, “The leader of the demon people has loose bowels because he is afraid of the People. “

Tsu’tey grinned and nodded approval.His warriors all nodded with him.

“But bows and arrows do not kill the kunsip,” he observed.

“No.They won’t,”Trudy agreed.“I mean--- not from a distance.But, ya know, you could take them out one by one when they weren’t looking, or ya know,there are ways.”She spoke lightly.Yes there were ways.An arrow in the back.A slit throat.Yes, there were lots of ways.

"And these canopies?" she got into the cockpit and tapped on the plexiglass. "If you were shooting down at the pilot, I would say that an arrow would probably go right through this, if you got close enough."

She'd seen what Na'vi arrows could do do amp suits. On an banshee in a dive, the scorpion pilot wouldn't stand a chance.

Tsu’tey absorbed this information. His stern gaze was riveted towards the forest and the Tree of Souls.

“Not all skypeople are bad,” he observed. “Why you come here?”

Trudy pointed at herself. “Me personally?”she asked.

He gestured widely to be more inclusive.“Why all of you come here?”

Trudy chuckled. “For this little grey rockthat is here and not where we come from and Hometree happened to be sitting on the largest piece.”

“That rock is like fire,”Norm interjected in Na'vi.“Many machines where we come from need that rock.We are many on our world --- many times more on our world than Na’viSky people are like the grasses.They have no number.They are many. They need the rock to make things so people can eat.It’s very complicated.”

“We would not mind them taking the rock,” Tsu’tey observed. “We did not mind at first.But when we gave them a place to dig for the rock, skypeople dig wherethey want and shoot Na’vi people.”

Trudy thought about explaining economics and politics to Tsu’tey but figuredthat would be pointless. “Do the Na’vi ever decide that another clan has something they want so they try to take it from them?Like war?”

“There hasn’t been a real war on Pandora for generations,”Norm told her.“Not Na’vi against Na’vi.”

They were interrupted by Neytiri and Jake.They both looked solemn, and not particularly hopeful.

Neytiri smiled down at Trudy.“Sky people not allowed at Tree of souls but you are Grace’s friend and tsahik has said you may come.”

“Oh, God, I'd like to some but someone ought to mind the store here,”Trudy said and waved towards the shack.“Cuz, we don’t know where the bad guys are. And with Norm and Jake linked, I really shouldn't leave them.”

Her point was well taken. What if Quaritch showed up? Tsu’tey barked an order and two of the young hunters remained behind with Trudy.She gave Norm a comlink and earpiece before he left.

“Let me know how it goes.”

And so they waited.And waited. The two warriors sat down cross legged on the ground, closed their eyes and began to chant. Trudy stood on top of the "shack" with her binos and looked towards Hometree. She saw the lights moving through the ground, the tendrils rising up and attaching themselves to the Na'vi queues-- even those of the two warriors with her. Though it was not quite sunset, it was dark under the Tree, dark, but full of pulsating light and the voices of the women, underscored by the low booming voices of th men. .She felt an electricity in the air that was like being covered in ants. Mo'at seemed to be in a trance, her thin blue arms waving as she spun slowly.The chanting rose to a crescendo and then died down. Mo'at bent over Grace waving her hands, then bent over th Avatar and did the same. Jake knelt beside Grace and held her hand.

Even the wind had stopped.There was no buzzing from insects.Pandora held its breath.

Trudy stared towards the Tree of Souls again. She saw Neytiri remove the rebreather. In an anticlimax, all the lights crawling through the ground faded.

Jake said something to Tsu'ty. She couldn't hear clearly, but Jake speaking English. and Tsu'tey was translating. She couldn’t make out what they were saying.

The hunters’ hearing was more acute.THEY could hear.They started to whoop and wave their weapons in the air.

Jake's speech became more empassioned. He bared his teeth and raised his fist in the air. Even Norm was doing that. Then, taking Neytiri's hand, Jake bounded towards the great leonopteryx, linked, mounted, and pulled her up behind him.

The afternoon exploded into an mad flurry of leathery wings, banshee shrieks and Na’vi war cries.With a boom like thunder, the leonoptryx took to the air followed by dozens of Na'vi on their ikrans, including Tsu'tey who looked down at Trudy and raised his bow in the air by way of salute as they sailed by.

She touched her throat mike.“Norm!What the hell is going on!”

“Grace didn’t make it,” he said.He sounded breathless.“Jake’s gonna --- they’re gonna gather all the Na’vi people and take on Hell’s Gate.”

“Where are you?”

“I gotta ride out with some of the people to the horse clans!”he sounded like a kid in a candy store.

“Jesus, Norm, you're gonne do WHAT?”

"I'm gonna ride to the horse clans. This is so cool!"

"Norm..." She was about to remind him he was a science geek. He cut her off.

Trudy felt isolated. She didn’t dare leave the shack, but she wanted to know exactly what the hell these people had in mind. Then it hit her. Like she had been thinking earlier ---if someone pulled the entire Na'vi population together Hell's Gate didn't stand a chance.

The young hunters were obviously angry that they couldn't go along, but they had not tamed their own ikrans yet and it would be folly if all the armed warriors left the Tree of Souls unguarded.

Trudy climbed down from the shack. Her mask was fogging up. She was crying. Hastily, she broke the seal so she could blow her nose. Then, out of habit, she went to the Samson and began a routine check, you know, just in case the shit hit the fan before Jake got back.

She was surprised to see the Tsahik, Mo'at coming towards her accompanied by her accolytes. Her stern face was streaked with tears.Steeled herself. . She'd cry later, inside the shack.

Grace was dead.Shot by the trigger happy asshole Quartich.She was dead, the avatar was dead.That was it.Dead.

The hunters nodded and said something in Na’vi to the Tsahik.Mo’at came towards Trudy.

“You are friend of Doctor Grace?”

“Yes, ma’am,I am.”

“Then will you help us bury her?”

“I would be happy to.”She thought a minute.“Can we bury her up there?" She poiinted back towards the mountains.“There is a place where we used to camp—where we did most of our research.I think she was happiest there.”

While it was true that Grace had gotten her wish---"I would die to get some samples," she had said about the Tree of Souls---Trudy just felt that if she had a choice, Grace would want to be buried up at Site 26. Not the schoolhouse --it held too many bitter memories-- but a quiet place, away from machine guns and trigger happy morons.

“How you get there?”Mo'at asked.

“I will fly. In that.” She pointed towards the Samson. “When Jake and Norm come back—I will take her up there and bury her.She would be happy there.”

"We will come with you on ikrans," Mo'at replied. She regarded the chopper with understandable loathing. “Are there other skypeople like you – friends of the People?” she asked.

“Oh yes ! Quite a few.They’ll keep us up to date on what’s going on back there--- I mean, they’ll send us messages so we will know.”

Mo’at passed her huge blue hand over Trudy’s head.“It is too bad sky people cannot make Tsahaylu,”she said. “Grace is with Ewya.You could hear her voice if you could make Tsahaylu,”

Trudy felt her throat catch.She hadn’t realized how much she had come to like Grace Augustine.

“ Well, I guess Jake can talk to her and pass on messages!” she quipped.

Mo’at merely nodded, andreturned to her people.Trudy told her hunter escort that she had to go inside to check some instruments.

Instead, once inside she pulled off her exopack and started to cry.She cursed and cried as she paced the length of the shack.There was Grace’s lab coat, her cigarettes, the pictures she had taken of the Na’vi children.Her half finished experiments.

All for some stupid little goddamned piece of grey rock that Sky people wanted to yank out of the ground because they’d screwed up their own backyardSo let’s screw up this one too.And shoot anyone who gets in our way.

She had no idea what Jake had in mind after he gathered the clans, although surely just the critical mass would overpower Hell’s Gate. They'd still need a plan. But then what? Kill them all?

01/31/2010

Synopsis:Jake has to name his banshee.When he links with his Avatar in Part Two, Neytiri has a surprise for him. She has another surprise when they are flying.

Jake was aware of Neytiri's presence in his hammock as his consciousness reconnected to his Avatar body.His sense of smell had become very acute--- it did not seem that he had ever seen, or heard, or touched, or smelled anything before becoming an Avatar driver.As soon as he was “linked” it seemedhe was alive.He had felt her movements and he smelled her.She smelled like flowers.

He no longer thought of himself as a “driver”, as if theAvatar body was a vehicle.That was him.That was more him than the other him.

He did not dare open his eyes. Something whispered across his forehead. She had kissed him.He fought back a smile,he must have moved.With hardly a sound she retreated to the usual perch right above his hammock, so she could get an early start in deriding him.This morning was no exception.She pitched a piece of fruit at the back of his head and accused him of being lazy.He avoided her gaze – if he looked her in the eye, she would know he had been awake and knew she had kissed his forehead while she thoughthe was still far away in "the shack".

He felt normal now.He could breathe.There was something in the Na’vi air that pumped energy into his Avatar --- he never felt that way in his human form, even with air scrubbers and filters.And he was eating real food, food he had hunted and butchered and shared with the People.The other hunters liked him, some of the girls even flirted with him.Even Eytukan nodded in his direction occasionally.Tsu’tey’s jibes were more of an attempt to see how Jake fought back verbally andthis led to some interesting conversations and bad jokes.It was almost like a real Marine platoon without the “f” word.

Neytiri was impatient for him to get started on the saddle for his banshee.The banshee saddles were made of leather and stitched together with twine from a local palm.Each banshee rider made his or her own saddle after a common design, the essence of which was to provide something like stirrups so the rider could stand and shoot.There was also a sort of a loop that held the banshee’s neural whips together.

With Neytiri’s help and guidance, Jake had assembled a respectable supply of materials.He had tanned his own leather and had dyed some of the pieces red and gold and green, with the juice of local plants.He had carved the stirrups himself and wrapped them in leather strips for better traction.

They climbed to the top of Hometree.She danced ahead of him--- light as a feather.There was no woman in the clan that moved like Neytiri did, or if there was, it did not occur to Jake to notice.And as usual, she moved faster than he could, maybe to show off, maybe to force him to keep up.He didn’t care.He was ok watching the back of her ascend the thick branches of home tree to the banshee nests.

He was lugging his bundle in sack made of woven twine.Even that he had to make himself.The Na’vi had expected him to be inept, because Sky People did not seem to want to make things like that.She was surprised to find that he was very good with his hands.

Field stripping a weapon endlessly does that to you.

She chirped at Seze, who crashed through the leaves.He gave a low hoot.Here came his own banshee, who flopped gracelesslybeside Seze and demanded a treat.

Banshee dog biscuits.There had to be a word in Na’vi for that

“Ok, ok!”he said, laughing.The beast chomped on a piece of meat and pressed his head under Jake’s hand.He seemed very proud of himself to have chosen a hunter and been chosen in return.The beast offered his neural whip --- he clearly wanted to “go for a walk.”

“In a minute,” Jake laughed.

They were not cuddly beasts.They were not fuzzy and cute,they did not bring your slippers or sit on your lap.Wild banshees had been known to attack and eatRDA employees.Their skin was smooth and leathery and hard. But they were fierce, proud and wild and there was there was pleasure in stroking the smooth multicolored hide of such a creature, as if all that was wild on Pandora was now at your beck and call.It was not a feeling of having conquered something.“You’re mine now,”Jake had said when he finally got the thing’s attention .That was not true .They were each other’s.

Neytiri squatted on her thighs and watched, smiling as Jake stroked the head and called the Ikran names she did not understand like “shithead” and “useless reptile.”It was that way with all hunters, even Tsu’tey who pretended to be so very very strong.When it came to his Ikran, Tsu’tey was worse than a man in love.

“Now, likeI showed, we fit the frame,” she said.Jake would have to make sure that the harness fit right, and that It did not chafe, for the banshee would wear it from this day til the day it died, or should Jake die first, it would be released.

IfParker pulled the plug on the Avatar project, would the banshee think he was dead?

Jake shook his head to clear that thought from his mind.

“Jake, what is it?”Neytiri wondered.

“Nothing.Just--nothing.”

She watched him assemble the harness and was very surprised at how adept he was.

“This very nice,” she said. “This newknot.This very good knot.Where you learn that?”

“Climbing,” he said.He was weaving and fitting and pulling this and that tight, while the banshee seemed to understand and wiggled this way and that to make sure it all lay well against his body

“Before I was a warrior, my brother and and I would go rock climbing,”Jake said as he worked. “Rock climbing.Like Iknemaya but with ropes.Sky People are not as strong as the Na’vi so we use ropes.In case we fell. A good climber can climb without putting any weight on the rope. But our bones aren’t likeours and we would die if we fell that far.”

Neytiri was pacing around Jake’s Ikran,trying to find something wrong with his work, but she could not.This was the first time he had mentioned any member of his family.

“Brother?You have family back where you are from?”

“Just my aunt now. Everyone else is dead. She’s the only one left. I've never actually met her. She left our - uh - hometree before I was born. I've talked to her a few times.” He hopd he wouldn't have to explain interstellar communications to Neytiri. For some reason the concept of communicating with someone who was not physically present did not in the least astonish her.

Must have to do with this whole tsahaylu thing and Ewya and whatever it was that fascinated Grace so much.

He explained the concept of roped climbing, and that there were mountains and places one could climb.Most of anything left scenic on earth was in private hands.But when he and Tommy were 14, they were part of the last team to summit Mount Everest, before the civil unrest in the Himalayas made it impossible for outsiders to enter the area. Those were the days when the family had money, before his father died of cancer, and his mother died of grief.

It was the only time Jake had been above the polluted atmosphere of earth and seen what a blue sky looked like.They stood on the roof of a dying world. Tommy leaned on his ice axe and said though his oxygen mask, “We may be the last human eyes to see this, bro,” he said.

Wow.He thought to himself.He had not thought of his family in a while. His father's sister, Anne, was some sort of interstellar shrink. She and her husband were scientists and left Earth before he was born on some mission or other. Jake remembered talking to her from time to time so it wasn't like she was a complete stranger. She had never came back to Earth. When Jake was wounded he went into a funk and stopped communicating with both her and Tommy.That was 6 years ago----he had left for Pandora with this message, “Tommy got killed.I’m going to Pandora in his place.”

He realized now what a self pitying asshole he had become.Maybe he could send a message back to her now and apologize. Communications were very expensive, but he could afford it with what he was earning on THIS mission.

Suddenly he stopped working and with one hand on the banshee’s shoulder, he stared out across the vastness of the Pandoran forest.He thought about his parents. He seemed to think Uncle Bob, Anne's husband, was dead too. Tommy was shot.He wondered if Anne was still alive and if so where in the solar system she was. Or what solar system she was in.

“I do not understand Sky People,” Neytiri said. “If I had family I would not leave them like that.What is she like, your aunt?I think I would like her”

Jake thought a minute. He could see Anne clearly now, though he had only met her via a monitor. Thin. Irish. Dark hair. Grey eyes.

“She studied how people think,” he said.“ Lik a tsahik. Skypeople knew one day they would meet others like the People. She tries to tell the Sky People that other people don’t think like them .The Na’vi are the only others like us we‘ve met, and my aunt tries to teach Skypeople that our way of thinking is not the only way.”

“She sounds like a very wise woman,”

“She is". He pondered. It was strange that Anne hadn't come to Pandora. That must mean she was dead. Otherwise she'd have been on the first transport out here.

“Is there no other family?”

She had never asked himabout his life on Earth before.She had never been curious.

“I had a brother.Tommy.In fact, he was supposed to be the Dreamwalker, not me.Someone killed him—they were stealing from him.So they decided to send me since nobody else could – um – be in this body but a close relative.”

“Was he like you?”

“Nah.He learned to speak Na’vi.He was like Grace—you know—a scientist.He was a good guy, though.He never….um---I had an accident when I was a warrior and Tommy never gave up on me.”

“Accident?Were you wounded?”her eyes got big and she laid her hand on his arm as if this body was the wounded body, and not his other one.

Jake pretended to fiddle with the saddle.Suddenly he couldn’t breath very well.

“I was wounded in a war,” he said, in as even a tone as he could muster.“I—um—back at back at the shack where we all are?””He pointed towards the Floating mountains.“I can’t walk.My legs don’t work anymore.I have to use a chair with um – wheels on it?A chair that I can move since I can’t walk any more.”

She sucked in her breath and peered closely at him as if he might disappear at any moment.

“Jake, is this true?Your sky person body is—broken?”

He shook his head and shrugged it off. “Yep.There isn’t any place in our world for a combat wounded warrior.When they told me Tommy was dead and offered me this?I took it.I wanted to learn new things and um – be a warrior again.And – have something to believe in again.”

He took in a deep breath.He was not good at true confessions.

“Do you believe in the People?”she asked.

Here he laughed. “Oh, this is easy to believe in!”he said.“I have the scars to prove it”

Neytiri walked around the banshee and inspected Jake’s work for flaws.What was flawed could kill you. She was clearly having a hard time controlling her emotions.He wondered what she thought now that she knew he was “flawed.”Well, the Na’vi think all the skypeople are flawed anyway, so maybe it wouldn’t matter.

“I am sorry your brother is dead,” she said as she tugged at this or that strap.Her tone was somber.She seemed to fiddle for quite a while, even going over parts that she had already praised.Jake paced slowly back and forth and wished he’d kept his mouth shut.

Finally she stepped back.

“This looks good,”she said.“See if it works.”She was herself again.Critical.

As if on command, his banshee offered him his neural whip.Jack reached for his queue and as the tendrils wound together, he got that spine tingling thrill as the two nervous systems connected.

He vaulted on board and settled his feet into the stirrups.The harness looked like it would hold.He looked where he wanted to go and then he was airborne.

He rememberedday two of his training, and Neytiri taking him to the top of Hometree.He remembered seeing her fly Seze for the first time.He felt that way now as he swooped around Hometree testing the worthiness of his new harness.

But he also felt sad and did not fly fast. Neytiri's questions had roused memories he had forgotten he had. The banshee wobbled a little—Jake was not focusing.He willed himself to focus on the task at hand and the animal leveled out.

He heard the familiar whoop. Neytiri had decided to join him and sheand Seze came towards them.Neytiri was alive—more alive than any being he had ever met but airborne she was even MORE alive.She was laughing.She tossed him something as she zipped by and he snatched it out of the air, very nearly unseating himself as he did.

It was a set of “goggles.”She must have made it herself.They were designed to deflect wind and the "windshields" were made from the wings of an insect, at last as tough as plexiglass.She had made a very handsome one for him, and he was very proud to pull it down over his eyes.

She was smiling now, embarrassed, hoping he would like the gift.The look on his face showed her that it was priceless.Whatever broken shell lay in a link machine at the shack was irrelevant.This – the banshees, the wind, the speed--- this was real.

He followed her through some aerial maneuvers.Tsu’tey would do the same things with the hunters.Tsu’tey was hard to like, but he was not hard to respect and admire.Jake in no way imagined that he was anywhere near Tsu’tey’s caliber as a hunter.And he understood chain of command.These people were better than he was.If either Neytiri or Tsu’tey called the play – he would run the play.

They did not fly for long--- Jake’s banshee would need tobuild up some stamina.After about an hour, they came in for a landing.

There were so many things that the banshee represented.There were so many things that this whole adventure represented.

“I figured it was just another hell hole,” he had said to Quaritch two months before.Now he was standing at the top of a skyscraper sized tree, ten feet tall, with a women he was pretty sure he had fallen in love with, staring at a banshee’s tooth filled face, trying to figure out what to name it.

“Some guy killed Tommy for the paper in his wallet and I’m standing here on this planet with this incredible woman,” he thought. He wanted to do for the Na’vi whatTommy wanted to do, what Grace was doing and keep those RDA assholes from blowing the place up. I can walk, I can fly.Maybe there is single thing worth fighting for.

“Does it have to be a name in Na’vi?”he askd.“Can I name him after aperson?”

“He is your ikran now,” Neytiri said.

“Tommy,”he said flatly.He grabbed the scarlet vane under the beast’s chin.Ikrans lked having that stroked as well.“You want to be Tommy, big fella?”He rubbed his knuckles between the banshee’s eyes and it “purred.”

“Tommy was a pretty smart guy,”he said.“He’d shit himself if he could see me flying around.Yeah, I think I’ll name him Tommy.”

Neytiri did not argue with him.

“Then your brother lives, Jake,” she said with a smile.“He is here with you.Because he is here—“and she pointed to Jake’s head --- “and now here.”She pointed to Tommy’s head.

Jake laughed.“Yeah.And he’s kinda ugly like Tommy. I was the good looking one!”

The banshee hissed.Clearly it held the opposite opinion.

Laughing, they sent their mounts back up into the higher branches with the rest of the herd.

“Now we make you Ikran bow,” she said. “Shorter than hunter bow—for use on Ikran. “

They bounded down from the heights of Hometree and started for the groves where the best wood grew for the banshee bows.

Grace watched them.Jake was laughing.He never laughed like that except when linked.She thought she had better say something to him that night, back at the shack.

But hours later, in the dark of night, seeing him pale and weary in that battered wheel chair, Grace thought, “Blind faith.”

·Synopsis:Neytiri wants Jake to give his banshee a name.In Part One, Jake is wants to know more about this Tsahaylu thing from Norm’s perspective. This Part was originally a stand alone piece, but I decided to make it Part Two.Here, we have Neytiri’s POV.Part Three will answer The Question!!!

·All the people knew what Sky People were. They were those small pink, angry things that crawled through the forest, destroying everything in their way.

Neytiri further knew that whatever it was that was in fact Jake fled back to his Sky person body when he slept,while the Dreamwalker body, alive, but empty, drifted in dreamlesssleep.

She wondered what he looked like. She did not wonder WHO he was – she felt she was coming to know that, because WHO he was, as all the Na’vi knew, was placed into the Dreamwalker. It was a concept she understood – like making Tsahaylu only sky people had no queue. So how then did they make Tsahaylu with themselves?Tsahaylu was visible.Ewya was visible.This process was not visible and therefore suspect.

Jake tried to explain. Grace tried to explain. There were things unseen that floated between the spaces in the air, Grace said and that power could beused.Even Mo’at scowled at that one. You could SEE Ewya in everything.This – this dreamwalker thing you could not “see.”The Skypeople did not “see”.At all.They were blind.

Grace, the scientist, gave up explaining.Quantum physics, the “god particle”subatomic particles – there were no concepts in Na’vi for these things . Jake, the jarhead said, “Well, I don’t understand it either. It’s just blind faith.”

“How is faith blind?” Neytiri asked.

“You have faith that Ewya will provide, right?” he asked. “You have faith that when you throw yourself off of a 100 foot tall cliff, you probably won’t die?”

She scowled. “That is no faith. That is true. What I know to be true.”

They slept in the top branches of Hometree with the other hunters, to be near the Ikran. Grace slept lower down with the families and occasionally some of the children slept with her. Knowing that village life started early, Grace and Jake made every attempt to be awake when the People stirred but that was not always possible. When Grace’s avatar was still sleeping, the girls would sometimes braid beads into her hair, or paint her face. When Grace awoke, the giggling alerted her to their harmless pranks.

Neytiri had schooled herself to awake before Jake, at first because she was curious about this “linking” thing . She noticed that sometimes, after a long day and a long hunt, he was late in waking. He tole her that occasionally he had to speak with the Jarhead clan leaders and that kept him from “linking.” He also told her that it seemed he was awake all the time – the long hours with the Na’vi , and then time after that to restore his Sky body with food and some exercise.

Neytiri did not grasp the concept of taking care of his Skyperson body entirely but then, Grace had said something to Jake once that neither one realized Neytiri had overhead.

Jake wrinkled his lip. In his avatar body he was strong, he was taronyu. He was free. Whatever that shell was dreaming in the link? That was not him. That was an inconvenience, a prison he was forced to return to.

Grace was insistent. “You have to take better care of yourself, Jake,” she said sternly. “Otherwise you won’t be strong enough to link.”

Neytiri slipped away from them so they wouldn’t know she had overheard. Not strong enough to link? Not strong enough to return to his Na’vi body? Why should thought disturb her? She fled to the heights of Hometree and summoned Seze. Hurling herself into the saddle and without her characteristic hunting cry, Neytiri willed her Ikran to plunge into the sky as if the speed of the wind of her flight would blow those thoughts away. It did not. Sensing her distress, Seze alighted on a cliff side and rumbled in sympathy with her, twisting her head back to nuzzle at her mistress. The Ikran clung to the cliff and hidden from prying eyes, Neytiri wept.

Grace’s speech sobered Jake a little. And so there were days when he seemed to “sleep” longer.

The morning after advising Jake he must name his Ikran, Neytiri sat crosslegged on the branch over his hammock. The other hunters were already up, but Jake was still asleep, curled loosely on his left side and, breathing evenly. It was Jake. It looked like Jake. But it was not Jake for Jake was not there yet. Til his eyes opened, he was not Jake, but somewhere else. Awake somewhere else perhaps. Or asleep. Or talking to other Sky People. There were other women among the Sky People. He talked sometimes of Trudy, the warrior woman who flew the sky machine.

Involuntarily, Neytiri hissed. Other Sky Women. Were they taronyu? They needed machines to fly and did not ride Ikran Could they fall through the forest canopy and land on their feet? They would die if they did. Could they read the tracks at the water hole? Probably not.

She suddenly had a very great desire to swing down into Jake’s hammock with him and be there when he awoke. She glanced around. Tsu’tey passed by, clearly annoyed that Jake had not roused. He was slowly developing a grudging admiration for Jake, however. He still called him, “skxwang” though now his tone had taken on something almost like affection. Almost, but not quite.

The hunters descended from the heights of Hometree to join the morning meal at the fire pit. Neytiri watched them go. There was no one there to see.

Very very very slowly and with infinite grace, she poured herself off her branch and touched the edge of Jake’s hammock. It opened slightly and light as a feather, she settled cross legged beside him. Her movements were of such exquisite grace and precision that no Na’vi would have noticed her presence.

Still he did not move. Neytiri unfolded herself and knelt above him. It seemed his eyes fluttered a little, but he did that sometimes when sleeping – the body was alive. Like a leaf drifting on a wind, she bent down and deposited the barest of kisses on his forehead.

He stirred.

She was back on her perch above him in an instant.

It was all Jake could do not to grin. He had made link a few minutes before and when she was distracted by Tsu’tey, he had opened his eyes and become aware of her presence. Quickly he closed them again and pretended to sleep. He knew she had entered his space.

He knew she had kissed him.

He raised himself onto one elbow and was prepared to say something clever to her but he was greeted by a large fruit pitched at the back of his head.

“Ow! What’s that for?”

“Lazy!” she reprimanded him. “Stupid. All hunters are gone now, we will be late and miss the herds. You sleep too much.”

He stretched and looked up. A thin, sinister face full of teeth peered down at him from the branches. His Ikran snapping his teeth The leaves and branches crackled with the movements of the other animals. Jake unwrapped a piece of meat from yesterday’s hunt. All the hunters kept treats for their ikrans wrapped in leaves that preserved the meat for some days. He tossed the meat up and his Ikran snatched it in midair. Jake grinned and the monster above him seemed to grin back.

“The hunters aren’t gone, they’re still having coffee and donuts,” the former Marine replied, and pointed down to the fire pit. He retrieved his belongings—his armguard, his chest plate, his weapon sling and his weapons.

“Come then,” she said, and held down a hand. He grasped it and swung himself up beside her, pulling her to her feet.

“What do you do, Jake, when you are not with the People?” she asked as they descended to the home fire. As usual she led and he followed. It was just as well, because he was still processing the fact she had kissed him in his “sleep”. There was no word in Na’vi for “shit eating grin”.

He caught a glimpse of himself in a piece of polished metal – the one thing the Na’vi had adapted from the Sky People. They took scrap metal and fashioned ornamental objects and even mirrors to catch the light and reflect it among the leaves of Hometree.

Taronyu. He was a hunter. He had captured his own Ikran As the weeks passed, he acquired more of the ceremonial dress of a Na’vi hunter. He saw a blue face, strong arms, the beaded collar Neytiri had made for him. He touched the beads with his fingers.

“Much more interesting,” he said. “You have no idea.”

They came to the fire pit here the other hunters were half way through their morning meal.

“JakeSully honors us with his presence!” Tsu’tey called. He was the war leader. He led the hunt. He was the Man, the guy with the Juice. Jake bowed deferentially and said something in very bad Na’vi about admitting his laziness, but didn’t he take a shot that Tsu’tey had missed the other day? Or had Tsu’tey just missed on purpose? Because a man of Tsu’tey’s abilities – such a thing would HAVE to have been intentional.

Tsu’tey appreciated the jibe and laughed, insulting JakeSully about his overall ineptitude on the direhorse. That led to a good humored banter among the young hunters as they ate and the families around them joined in. Even Etukan laughed, insofar as Etukan condescended to laugh.

Neytiri sat back and watched. Jake was becoming part of the People. They liked him. If his life as a Sky Person did not warrant remembering, perhaps there would be a way found where Jake could stay among the Na’vi and never go back.

Perhaps Ewya would help.

Grace, surrounded by her “girls”, squatted down beside Neytiri. “You seem very thoughtful this morning,” she said. Her Na’vi was almost flawless.

“I was thinking,” the girl replied. “Blind faith. I know what that is now.” She could only render the concept of blind faith as “the miracle that is not yet seen, but it will happen.”

“Great. Explain it to me, then.”

“There are things we see here,” Neytiri touched Grace’s eye gently. “And here.” She touched the scientist’s forehead. “But some things are here” and with that she placed one hand over her own heart and one over Grace’s. “That is where blind faith lives.”

He eyes wandered over Grace’s shoulder to the hunters finishing their meal, to Jake listening to Tsu’tey giving them flight instructions.

In an instant, Grace could see where she was headed with this.

“Be careful, Neytiri,” she said in an undertone. “Jake isn’t --- I don’t know how long---“Neytiri hushed her with a finger on her lips.

“Faith,” she said. “I only need blind faith.”

Grace said nothing. She thought of Quaritch and Selfrdige and how little time there was left.

01/27/2010

Synopsis: I am fascinated by the day to day stuff we don't see. And what DO you call your banshee, anyway?

NOTE :Dialogue between Jake and Norm is in italics to indicate they are speaking in Na’vi.

Videolog Sully,J.August 3, 2154

“Neytirisays I need to give my banshee a name.What do I call it- or him?It’s not like he’s a horse or a dog.I can’t call him Prince, or Trigger, or something like that.He’s a greedy son of a bitch, I’ll say that.Almost took my hand off when I was feeding him.

“They eat a crapload of food, too.I mean, they hunt on their own, but they’re a freakin’ bottomless pit.They could have just eaten, and when I call him he expectsI dunno what to call them – some kind of banshee dog biscuits.”

“Banshee dog biscuits?”she said.“What the hell are you talking about.”

She was laughing so hard, tears ran down her face.“You have got to show more respect for these people, Marine,”she chided him, but she was still laughing.

Jake half turned and not for the first time protested, “Whose video log is this, anyway?”

He was growing very fond of Grace Augustine, in spite of herself.Over the last two months, she had toned down her sarcasm, and since he had captured his own banshee and was officially a hunter,she looked at him differently.

She was very curious about Tsahaylu, and Jake was surprised to learn that after all these years, Grace had never even asked to ride a direhorse.

He himself wasn’t sure what to make of the Bond.It was weird, to have this animal presence in your mind, and to think, “go here, or go there.”The banshee was like an extension of himself --- like it was he that was flying and the animals wings were his wings. It made him feel like he was part of something huge – huger even than just him and his banshee.

Even the first time he “made Tsahaylu” with the direhorse,he sensed he was headed down a path of which Colonel Quaritch would not approve.The banshee hunt sealed the deal.

It was pretty cool.

It made him wonder if the Na’vi did that with each other.No one ever talked about it, but, it sorta made sense.

“Hey, where’s Norm?” he wondered suddenly.

“Outside.”Grace inclined her head to one of the link chambers--- Norm was dozing comfortably in the clamshell,while outside, in his Avatar, he was performing some routine maintenance.

Jake backed his wheel chair, grabbed an exopack and headed through the airlock.He could feelGrace’s eyes on the back of his head.She could never get used to the idea that he neither wanted, nor needed help, but then she was a scientist,she wasn’t a Marine.

There was no such thing as an ex Marine.Former Marine was the accepted term.Semper Fi, Do or Die.Uu rah!You never lose the attitude.

Jake spent more time in his Avatar than in the body he was issued at birth, and he had begun to think of himself not as Jake Sully, combate wounded veteran, but at JakeSully, toronyu.He even liked the sound of “skxawng” although even Tsu’tey had stopped using that epithet.He had become larger than his former life, and not merelybecause he was ten feet tall, but for so many other reasons.

Tommy had been the brain.Tommy would have been able to find the words to describe what Jake was feeling.All Jake had were the feelings.

Norm was “walking fence” an old Earth slang term used in the days when there was grass and cows and pasture.He was going over the exterior of the “shack” to make sure that the structural integrity was still sound.Trudy sat cross legged on top of the structure with a gun across her knees.This high up there wasn’t anything that would bother them, but all the fauna on Pandora had not been catalogued yet, and it did not due to be careless.

It was night.The grasses glowed with the living phosphorescence.They were all on a strange schedule now.Back at Hometree, Jake’s Avatar was asleep.Jake himself would catch a few winks, eat something, and then plug back into his new life at dawn.

“Shouldn’t you be getting some shuteye?”Norm asked.

“Yeah, you look like crap,”Trudy observed.

With a smile, Jake told them both what they could do with themselves.

“No doubt we will, but later,”Trudy shot back.

“I just wanted Norm to explain something to me in Na’vi,”Jake replied.

“Can’t Grace?”Norm wondered. “Her Na’vi is better than mine.”

Jake gathered his thoughts and translated into Na’vi as best as he could.

“You understand the People better than Grace does in many ways,”he said.“Tsahaylu.I want to know more about it.Have any other Dreamwalkers done Tsahaylu?”

“Not that I know of.You’re the only one who has tamed an Ikran.”

“What about the pa’li?Have any Dreamwalkers ridden a pa’li?”

This question seemed to catch Norm off guard.He let off what he was doing and sat down on a large boulder to think about this.

“Do all the Na’vi glow in the dark?”Trudy wondered.It always amazed her to see Norm’s avatar at night, as if someone had plugged little LED lights into his face.

“Everyone has a distinct pattern too,”Jake said. “You can tell who someone is just by their bioluminescence.The kids play hide and seek with these little insect type guys that they stick on their faces so it’s hide and seek in plain sight if you’re trying to find one particular kid.”

“So what’s your question?”Norm asked in English.

Jake glanced at Trudy, then remembered she would not know a word they were saying if he continued in Na’vi.

“I think if sky people understood Tsahaylu they would not want the rock in the ground.”

“I think that sky people do not want to understand anything,”Norm replied.“I do not wish to see a dreamwalker Quaritch.That is a demon in a false body.No one wants that.”

“So the scientists never asked the People if they could even learn to ride a pa’li?”

Norm thought about this for a moment.It was something that simply never came up.Even with Jake describing his experiences with the direhorse and with his Ikran, Grace still was trying to quantify this, trying to find a scientific formula for something that she could only understand intellectually.No doubt if she wanted to know more, the People would let her.Yet she had never asked.

“Do Na’vi people bond with each other?”Jake asked.

“It is the same with Skypeople, as far as that goes. But I know that mated pairs----“He stopped.

“You’re not…..”he said in English.

“I was just curious, that’s all.”

“I mean, Jake, don’teven THINK about it.There’s only another month on this project unless you can come up with a better answer.”

Jake continued in Na’vi.Trudy watched the exchange with great curiousity.They were discussing something they did not want her to know about.They were discussing something Norm was advising Jake not to do.She wondered what that was.

“So tell me how that happens between a man and a woman.”Jake asked.“Or is it just with animals?”

“The woman chooses the man,”Norm replied. “She initiates Tsahaylu.The People do not discuss it but one of the first sky people here made friends with a Na’vi man who told him.It is very powerful.There is not a word in Na’vi for it.It is very powerful to the body.Tsahaylu does not make the babies.It mates the man and woman for life.”

“Cool,”Jake said in English with an impish grin.

“I mean, Jake, you’d better not.”

“Hey, I’m the village idiot, remember?”He said with a self effacing shrug.“I’m a science project.I was just curious that’s all.”

Grace tapped on the window and gestured for the “children” to come inside.Norm finished what he was doing and ducked into the other building to lay down, and thus awake again in his human body.Jake and Trudy came in through the airlock.

“So what does Pocahantas have on your agenda for tomorrow?”Trudy wondered.

“I have to make a harness for my Ikran,”Jake said.“So I guess you could say I’ll be doing basketweaving.”

“All useful skills back on Earth,”the chopper pilot quipped.

“You’d better get some sleep for a couple of hours,”Grace ordered him.“I’ll wake you in plenty of time.And for the love of God take a shower.”

Jake flipped her off with a grin and tucked into his own bunk.

If people like Quaritch and Selfridge had queues and understood what they were doing, maybe they wouldn’t do it.

Then again, maybe people like that don’t want to understand.It was too personal – it made you think differently.And they did not want to think differently.

Maybe that’s why the scientists never tried it.Because they didn’t want to feel, they just wanted to know.

01/23/2010

The night glowed.It shimmered and danced with the flickering of little bioluminescent insects that punctuated the heavens between Pandora and Polyphemus.Below, way, way down, lights streaked through the jungle and grasses.Occasionally the lights gathered in a frenzy and then moved on – viperwolves scavenging the fallen dead.The Na’vi had been quick to retrieve as many of their own as they could, but left the Sky People where they lay. The viperwolves had their feast. In the morning, there would only be shreds of uniforms, expopacks , and personal belongs amidst the wreckage of the gunships.Amp suits were sucked dry of their occupants.It would look as if a giant, careless child had strewn his toys about and left them.

The shuttle, the dragon gunship, all the Scorpions and Samsons that had gone down were scattered across a debris field that covered miles.Even when the jungle and the grasslands grew over them, many Na’vi generations from now, the descendents of the warriors and of Toruk Makto himself would still find bits of that time and sing the songs of those great days.

Hell’s Gate was breached.The mutineers had cut the power to the outer fences ,and the survivors were under guard.Those who had not died during the assault on the Tree of Souls and who had made it back to Hell’s Gate were being treated, reluctantly, by the medical staff.The comlink between Hell’s Gate and VS 9 was manned by a mutineer who filed bland reports til they could figure out what to do next.

Neytiri had carried Jake from the ruined shackand held him like a child. She wept and laughed and they made fun of each other. That he was a pale, crippled, former Marine made no difference to the Na’vi – in fact it elevated him in their eyes.They brought his Avatar to their camp but did not know what to do.Mo’at ordered someone to find Norm.He would know what to do.

Norm persuaded Neytiri to let him take Jake back to Heaven’s Gate – one of the few surviving gunships was commandeered for this and sent to them, including Norm’s avatar.Neytiri wanted to go with them but Jake stroked her tear streaked face and said, “I would rather wake up here with you.Stay here.”

Once back at Hell’s Gate, Jake ate something and napped.He was mentally drained. Had he really done all that?Was he really that “mighty?”He must have for the evidence was all around him.But he was eager to go where he belonged and by nightfall, he stirred in his Avatar and as his eyes popped open, there was Neytiri, her face and body washed clean of her warpaint.

“I see you!”she smiled in Na’vi

“I see you!”he repliedand he meant it.She laughed.His pronunciation was still awful.

The Na’vi were celebrating.The Horse clans, the Ikran people, the Omaticaya and all the others were celebrating.Toruk Makto was expected to make a speech.He praised the People, he mourned the dead,his brothers and sisters, and Tsu’tey who was the bravest of all of them.There was a great cry from the other hunters--- Ateyo, Tsu’tey’s younger brother should be given his bow.This was unprecedented, as it would rightfully go to Tsu’tey’s own son or daughter, had he lived to father any.

Ateyo had barely tamed his own Ikran but he had fought well and it was only by a miracle he had not joined his brother in death.He was reckless and fearless and arrogant, like Tsu’tey and the physical resemblance between them was very strong. He had even adopted Tsu’tey’s away of saying his name, “JakeSully” as if it was a bad joke.

A Marine wouldn’t weep, but a Na’vi warrior would mourn his comrade and so Jake let himself grieve with the others.

As soon as it was politically correct, Jake took Neytiri’s hand and whispered, “What was that thing you did to me the other night?You know….”

She giggled and lead him a little distance apart.“Tsahaylu,” she said coyly.

“Yeah, that. Can we do that again?”

They slipped into the living, glowing night of Pandora.Only Mo’at saw them go and wondered what their children would look like.

Back at Hell’s Gate, Norm Spellman slouched in a swivel chair near Jake’s link machine and tried to think of something else besides Trudy’s chopper going up in flames.He was successful as long as it took for the others to clock out for the night. It was good they knew nothing of their romance.Max just patted him on the shoulder and said, “Nice work, man!”

Norm smiled wanly.The doors whoosed shut and he was alone.

The rage was gone, the adrenalin was gone, even the joy was gone.Trudy was dead and alone, Norm could finally weep.

*******

Fastflight awoke.Her shoulder throbbed.She was thirsty.She was aware of something small tucked under her wing.

She was alone now.Her hunter was dead.She knew the stories—all the Ikran told them.If your hunter dies while you are bonded, you will die too.

That, she knew now, was a lie. Her hunter had died and at that moment, the Ikran experienced death though not her own.The last thought that went through her hunter’s mind was for the Ikran.“Save yourself,” she ordered the beast.Wounded, Fastflight flapped clumsily to a ledge and perched there.Her rider’s body slipped to the ground.Fastflight was not happy she could not rejoin the battle, but when she flexed her wings, the muscles below would not work right.She would need to rest and heal.

Then that Sky person had come and at first Fastflight was defensive.After a moment, she recognized her.She had seen her.Her hunter had spoken to her.All these thing were stored in Fastflight’s memory for when Tsahaylu is made with an Ikran, the thoughts and memories of the hunter become those of the beast.And they could not be erased.The death of the hunter did not remove those memories and they lived on.And if that Ikran mated, the memories lived on somehow in the mate and in the young.

Thus it was from the time of the first songs, when a Na’vi first tamed an Ikran.All Ikran, whether they were wild or no, were descended from that one individual whose experienceslived on, even faintly, in the herd.It was strongest in the ones who chose young hunters.

Trudy was, therefore, a friend .She was a friend toNeytiri mate of Toruk Makto and Neytiri was cousin to her hunter and Sze Sze and Fastflight were friends, in sofar as a naturally truculent beast can have friends. Therefore, Trudy was one of the People.

It was true that a riderless Ikran would return to the eyries, but Fastflight was not well enough to fly.And the SkyPerson friend of Neytiri Mate of Toruk Makto was not well.And she could not fly.Her metal Ikran had died and she was trapped up here.

“Come with us!” the wild Ikran had called to Fastflight as they sailed skyward after their part In the battle.

“I have work to do!”Fastflight called.

“Your rider is dead.Come with us.”

She rattled her jaws at them.Wild Ikran had no sense of honor or duty.The Ikran whose riders had died during the battle would linger a little around the People, before finally taking flight back to the eyries.There they would remain mostly to themselves talking of old times, and hunts and battle and memories of their riders, and memories of their riders’ memories.Fastflight would join then. She would choose a mate and have young.And they would remember this day.

But first,the Ikran had one last duty to perform.

The Ikran do not hunt at night, they sleep.Fastflight did not like being awake, but she did not feel entirely safe.It was true that the only thing that hunted Ikran was toruk, and the one toruk in the territory was bonded for now.But she was alone, with no herd and she could not fly just yet.So it did not do to let one’s guard down.

She lifted her wing and regarded Trudy.Having no point of reference for a human, sick or well,and no way to communicate, she could only incline her neural whip towards Trudy and let the delicate threads play over the pilot’s exposed skin.In that way,Fastflight hoped to pick up something like a connection.

She could feel an even heart beat.That was a good sign.Her charge was breathing evenly, another good sign.Fastflight sensed she was troubled, but without a proper connection she could not define it clearly.

Sometime in the night, there were other noises, cries and moans.The Ikran swiveled her head around.These were strange sounds to her.She chattered a warning.Were there animals up here she was not familiar with?

For a moment she wondered where the hell she was.She was warm,that was nice.

There was an unpleasant stench in the air.Things decomposed rapidly on Pandora and there was decomp in the air. Trudy tried to move but the pain in her side made her breathless.Her arm felt better though.

She had a raging thirst.She crept out from under the Ikran’s wing and found she could stand up.

The dead Na’vi was in a delicate state of decomposition, although from rapid work the Pandoran insects were doing, it would not be long before she was nothing but bones, and then the acid rain would eat those away as well.Trudy wished she could have had a more honorable burial than this, but, well, she was being recycled.

Fastflight lifted her head.Unconsciously, Trudy rested her hand on the beast’s shoulder.Fastflight coiled her neural whip around her waist.

“Ok, bubba, now what do we do?”

Fastflight recognized the rising tone of a question in her new companion’s voice.She shook herself and stood.Her shoulder felt as if it would heal if given time.This was good.What was not good was being stuck on the rock.

“Man, banshee spit has some good mojo!”Trudy flexed her arm.It was sore, but whatever the banshee had done the day before had worked wonders.Now if the thing could only scare up a way down.

Trudy paced around their ledge.It was stable enough, but it was a long effin’ way down. There was not much below her except for a few boulders and then a vast amount of space. Everything seemed to be up or sideways. She looked up and tried to remember what Jake had told her about climbing up to capture his Ikran.

The Na’vi had trails of sorts up here.There were vines and roots that grew from one rock to another.There were huge trees that had sent out branches from the forest and created stomach wrenching bridges.He had described a “beanstalk” of some sort that they climbed to the banshee nests.

It was therefore possible to navigate a way down.In the meantime, there was the problem of food and water.And how long would she be up there?Even with food and water, her exopack would be useless after two weeks.

If only the banshee would fly and accept her as a rider.Yeah, right, she thought.

She checked the beast’s bullet wounds.They looked ok, but might heal faster if they were sutured.

It was then that she heard the same low moans and cries that had disturbed the banshee.

Troopers calling for help.Crying for their mothers.Praying to God for death.

“Holy shit!”she exclaimed.She was not the only one up here.No doubt other pilots and troops had been marooned up here when their ships went into the mountains, or when the Na’vi yanked them out and tossed them away.

She was about to shout, “Hey!”but then she remembered.They were the enemy.

But if they were up there, was there wreckage?Food?Water?More expopacks?

Trudy looked around for a weapon other than her gun --- theNa’vi arrow was a great spear and the tips were usually poisoned, so that was a bonus.She listened for the sounds of the nearest survivors and figured he or she was above her.She’d have to climb up the cliff face to the top of her rock and up a trailing vine that had secured itself around her boulder.

It looked safe enough but she’d have felt more comfortable if she was tied in.She looked around for something to use for climbing gear and her eye lit on the banshee’s harness and the Na’vi woman’s weapons sling.

Fastflight observed with great interest as Trudy went to work.She fashioned a climbing belt for herself and cut apart the harness so she could use the longest pieces for a rope.She secured the Na’vi arrow across her back and at last started up the cliff face.There were good holds and not a long fall—assuming she didn’t roll off the side.

When she started up the cliff face, the banshee took exception to this and objected very loudly.

“Hey, I gotta us a way out of here!”Trudy told her.She was at eye level with the animal.She stroked the mottled head.She continued to climb and something braced her feet.

The banshee had stuck her head under Trudy’s feet and she lifted herup.

“Way to go!”Trudy hooted.

“Hey!”

It was one of the survivors.“Anyone down there?”

Trudy cursed.She had no idea if this person was armed, dangerous, or dying.She said nothing.

“Whose down there?”the voice demanded.Trudy coughed to disguise her voice.

“Hey, man, how ya doin?” she rasped

She fastened her rope to her makeshift belt and tied a prusik knot around the tree root.(author’s note:a prusick is a type of climbing knot that will automatically tighten if it takes weight).She could push the loose knot upthe vine, and should she fall the knot would tighten when her weight hit it – assuming the material of the harness held.

Something large clambored up beside her.The banshee was not leaving her alone.

“Shh”Trudy whispered.“Those are bad guys.They might have guns.”

Fastflight sensed they must be quiet.She watched Trudy ascend the vine, and herself assessed the situation –using her foreclaws could she climb up, knowing that one wing might not hold?

The vine lead up to another, larger rock.Very gingerly, Fastflight hooked her good claw on the vine.Using her three good claws and her teeth, followed Trudy up.

Trudyfroze when she felt the weight of the banshee and for a moment was afraid the root would tear.Instead, the.Trudy kept going til she reached the next rock.Very carefully she poked her head over the ledge.

Half of a Scorpion had come to rest up there.There was a dead, decomposing trooper and the pilot.The pilot was still strapped into his seat.His head was canted in a very odd position.Trudy came to the conclusion something was very wrong, possibly a broken back or neck.

But it did not do to be cavalier at this point.She untied from her rope .

They recognized eachother.They had been teammates once but now they were enemies.Trudy reached behind her for her weapon.

“Ya, gonna shoot me, bitch?”the pilot sneered.

“Nah, that would be too easy,” Trudy said. “I think I’ll just let you sit up here and die.How many Na’vi kids did you kill when you took down Hometree?”

She kept an eye on him as she scrounged amongst the wreckage.She found another exopack, a meal replacement package and two bottles of water.

“It’s them or us,” the pilot said.Sanders.That was his name. Sanders.“They attacked us.”

“We don’t belong here,” Trudy replied. “What do you think people are gonna do when you come in and sit on their couch and change the channel on their tv?”

“This here’s my baby!”Trudy said proudly and patted the banshee’s shoulder.She found a medical kit.Oh good, she could sew up the bullet wounds so they wouldn’t keep tearing open.

Banshees do not like to scavenge but sometimes one cannot be picky.Without much ceremony, Fastflight fell on the dead trooper.He did not taste as good as fresh ones but it was better than nothing.

Trudy looked away.Because the pilot was paralyzed, he could only close his eyes and gag, finally vomiting and for a moment it looked like he might choke to death, but he recovered. Trudy felt like throwing up as well.She had seen a lot of things, but never the aftermath of a battle, not like this, where you’re on your own and anything goes.

The banshee left off eating the dead trooper.The pilot was fresher.She started towards him.

In an instant Sanders went from daring Trudy to shoot him to pleading for his life, from accusing her of cowardice to calling her a cold hearted bitch.

Trudy thought a minute – should she stop the banshee?But then, what else could they do?The animal had to eat and Sanders was going to die anyway. For a moment she was tempted to let him watch himself be eaten alive. But humanity got the better of her. She leveled her weapon at him.

"You don't deserve a quick death, asshole," she said. "But I'll give you one anyway." Then she put a bullet between his eyes.

Fastflight turned and hissed at her.Trudy held her hands spread apart in a gesture of surrender.

“Hey, I knew the guy!It’s a mercy killing!" she said apologetically. "Have a nice breakfast!”

"Jesus, Chacon," she said to herself. "What have I turned into? Setting a big ass dinosaur on a guy and shooting the guy. It's like a bad movie.

This was one rock Trudy had no intention of lingering on. There had to be a patch of Pandora where someone hadn’t died recently.She drank a little water, but her revulsion overpowered her thirst.

She searched for radio equipment that wasn’t shattered – no good.The banshee had ruined the pilot’s headset so that was out.She found another weapon and some foul weather gear.And she found a pair of binoculars.

It was like salvation . She could at least search for a route out of here.

The tree of Souls was THAT way but there was nothing in that direction that would lead her to a solid cliff face she could descend to the jungle floor.The nearest one of those log root tree type things was away from the Tree of Souls. If she could just walk there, it would take an hour, max.But she would have to pick her way around these floating rocks and that could take days.

The banshee was bleeding again, but having eaten, was sluggish and did not protest too much when Trudy stitched up her wounds and taped them as best she could to keep the muscle from tearing.

This rock was banging gently against another, larger formation.Many heavy roots dangled down and water spilled over the sides.She figured she could get a better vantage point on how to get to the “bridge” from there, so once again, she ascended.Grumbling because she was full and wanted to sleep, the banshee followed.

This climb was harder.It was difficult to keep the image of the banshee eating her former comrades out of her head, and more than once, Trudy lost her hold and it was lucky the prusik knot caught.The second time that happened, Fastflight braced her head under Trudy’s feet, and they crawled up to the grassy ledge.

There were bits of debris from explosions but that was it.A small tree—small by Pandoran standards – had taken root.Water seeped down the sides of the rock and the banshee could hang her head over and lick the seeping water.

For a moment, Trudy forgot she was stranded on a hostile planet.She had taken Pandora for granted til now.Standing up there scanning the horizon, the forest below, the massive boulders around her, the outline of Polyphemus with one of its other moons traversing the face between it and Pandora--- wild ikrans like stitching through the clouds---this was why Jake had made the choices he had made.This was why Grace had, and why Norm and why she had made those choices.

Norm.He probably thought she was dead.Hell, for all she knew HE was dead.Maybe Jake was dead as well—she had no idea who lived and who died.She knew only that the Tree of Souls was intact.

She could see the pimple that was Hell’s Gate from here through her binos, though it was not visable to the naked eye.There was movement, but hard to tell what ---looked like a lot of Na’vi---

Na’vi.If what she was seeing was correct, it meant Hell’s Gate had been taken over.

“That is a riderless Ikran,” one said.They could tell by the voices if the Ikran was wild or not.

“There are many dead sky people up here,” another observed. “Maybe we will find our own dead as well.”

They guided their mounts upwards, but a low hooting called them back --- Toruk Makto summoning the hunters to go with him to Hell’s Gate.They swooped down to join Toruk Makto and his mate, who ride behind him.

It was not possible to talk while flying and be understood, for the wind would whip the words away from your mouth. An ikran’s voice was bold and could be heard, but not a Na’vi’s

It was therefore not possible to hear one lone woman screaming, “Jake! Jake, goddamnit, I’m up here!”

Trudy had heard them and leaned over the edge to see flaming orange and brilliant blue of the monstrous leonopteryx with Jake and Neytiri and a squadron of other banshee riders.

She screamed at the hunters below her, at the receeding outline of the Leonopteryx.The banshee screamed as well.

Tsu'tey's younger brother, Ateyo was flying with Toruk Makto. His Ikran heard Fastflight, and Ateyo felt the recognition from his mount.Recognition, urgency, help us.

Us. That meant that someone of the People was trapped up there.

He urged his beast forward, as close as it would go to the mighty Toruk.

“Neytiri!" Ateyo called. "There is someone stranded up there – back there!”

Neytiri, riding behind Jake on the mighty Toruk, braced her hands on her mate's shoulders.

“What is it?” Jake asked.

“Ateyo say there is someone back up there-warrior and Ikran.Ikran cannot fly.It is wounded.”.

As Jake looked up, the Toruk slowed down.People trapped up there! Good God, would this nightmare never end? It hadn't occured to him that anyone would be stuck up in the Floating Mountains, but it made sense.

He motioned for Ateyo to peel off and see but made a gesture--- the Na’vi had a sign language they used when hunting.

“Be careful,” Jake motioned. “There could be enemies up there.”

Ateyo nodded.Jake nodded in return, and with a cry to the Toruk, he and the others aimed for Hell’s gate and the final show down.

Trudy did not see Ateyo wheel around.She had fallen to her knees and was beating her fists on the grass, weeping and cursing.Jake had not seen or heard her.No one would.Ever.

01/21/2010

What Trudy did not know about banshees would have filled volumes.She was glad it wasn’t that Leonopteryx thing, although what difference did it make.She had entered the food chain and wasn’t at thetop of it.

The banshee hissed again and snapped its teeth. Trudy stared, trying to remember what Jake had told her about taming a banshee and just general Na'vi behaviour when challenged. He said it freaked him out at first, but then he found himself just doing it. So she did as well.

She hissed back and bared her teeth at the banshee.

“Hey, asshole, we’re on the same side," she snarled.

Just that effort made her lungs scream. Broken rib?She wanted to move.She couldn’t.

The banshee hissed again with less vehemence and nuzzled the dead Na’vi.The Na’vi were tough but they weren’t bullet proof. Trudy felt her throat catch. You had to admire a people who would fly into battle without a seatbelt and go up against gunships with bows and arrows. You had to admire a people who would lay it all on the line for something they believed in. What was it Jake said -- some kind of prayer for the dead? She wished she had paid better attention when Norm was teaching Jake Na'vi. She could have at least said, "Hey, how ya doin'?"

There were noises.Choppers.Gun Fire.Something big blew up far below. Must be the shuttle from the sound of it. Jake was supposed to sabotage the engines so it would auger in.Thousands of forms poured down from the heights of the Mountains.The banshee lifted its head and screamed as hordes of its wild brethren descended on the squadron. Trudy saw a Scorpion in the clutches of two banshees—one snatched the door gunner and threw him to the ground, and the other took the Scorpion and tossed it into the air like a tennis ball.

Wow. They were riderless. Thousands of riderless banshees had joined the ruckus and were kicking some serious RDA ass.

“Yeah baby!”she cried weakly and tried to pump her good arm in the air.The banshee also hooted a battle cry, then it gasped and shivered.

The sounds of battle retreated farther and farther away.There was another explosion, some scattered gunfire and then what seemed to be some minor skirmishes here and there.There were no more choppers.There were no more bombs.Then there was silence, except the occasional banshee returning to their heights, the wind, the rocks banging into each other,and the heavy breathing of the wounded banshee.

Trudy lay in the thin grass and felt cold – shock, she assumed.Loss of blood.She and the banshee up on the top floor of a building with no elevator and no way down.

The banshee nuzzled its dead rider, like a dog would nuzzle a puppy.It cooed and made a singsong noise.It touched the Na’vi’s queue with its own neural connector one last time, and then nosed the body aside laid its head on the ground for a moment and closed its eyes.

“Oh great, now that goddamned thing is gonna die up here,”Trudy thought. "That will NOT smell good. I wonder if I could eat it? I could sure use a candy bar right about now."

The beast picked its head up and tried to stand – the wings seemed intact, but the breathing was labored.It didn’t seem to be bleeding that much.If it could fly, Trudy assumed it would rejoin the herds.

Trudy felt sorry for it.It was stuck up here without a pilot, and she was stuck up here without a chopper.How the hell anyone would know she was up here ---they all probably thought she was dead.

She worried about Norm.He was no warrior.He had chosen to ride into battle on one of those direhorses and she hope he had lived – well even if the Avatar was killed, Norm would live.

She worried about herself. Unless she found a way off this rock, she WOULD be dead.

She moved very slowly.The banshee hissed but that was all.

Trudy inspected her own wounds.She had taken fire, and her arm was torn by shrapnel and she had burns, but she wasn't shot. The toxic Na’vi air stung her flesh.She winced as she struggled to sit up higher.

The banshee shuffled around on its foreclaws and hindlegs, keeping her in its line of sight.

“I’m no threat to you, bubba,” she told it. “I’m pretty banged up.”

One of the Na’vi arrows was within reach.It made a nice walking stick for Trudy.Using it, she managed to hoist herself to her feet.Between it and the rock face she was leaning against, she stood up.

The wind whistled around them.The banshee’s head snaked around as it looked up and down to assess its own situation.

Trudy thought.There had to be some way of creating a signal so people would know she was up there.She took hold of a handy vine and leaned over to look at the view.

The dragon gunship lay in ruins.She could see Na’vi hunters swooping around the Tree of Souls.Quaritch was no doubt dead.Good.He deserved it.

“I guess we won,” she said.She retreated back offthe cliff edge.No water.Even if it rained, the water was toxic.No food—she couldn’t digest it anyway.

“I gotta get down off this rock,” she said.

The banshee chattered its teeth and nuzzled the bullet wounds.Trudy could see it had taken some hits but she was pretty sure she could dig them out if the silly beast would let her near enough.

“Ok we’re pretty screwed up here, bubba,” she said.

The monster nuzzled its wounds, looked at her, and nuzzled the wounds again.

“You want me to get the bullets out?”

The banshee stared and made a chirping sound, but did not hiss or bare its teeth.

Trudy still had her knife strapped to her thigh.“What the hell,” she said.“I guess I better get that saddle off of you too, so you can go home to your people.”

The banshee kept its eye on her but did nothing as approached. Trudy reached out very carefully and laid her hand on the beast's good shoulder.

13.9 meter average wingspan. it was huge, much the same as that leonoptryx thing was huge to Jake, after riding around on his own banshee. The skin was cool and smooth and very reactive to her touch. In fact, it was rather comforting to pet the beast and the banshee seemed to enjoy it.

Very gingerly, Trudy probed the wounds.They were not deep – it was very likely the beast could still fly. Trudy dug out the bullets one by one and tossed them on the ground.

She became aware of something wet and raspy on her ravaged left arm.

The banshee was licking her arm.

“Hey—knock it off!I know you guys like to eat us humans!”

The banshee continued to lick.It licked off the blood and soot.

The beast inspected its own wounds again and shivered its wings.It seemed to be moving better.

Some stray wild banshees whizzed by and called to it. It called back.

“Hey, go with your people!”Trudy said. “Let me get that saddle off of you.”

She cut the straps holding the saddle in place and the banshee wiggled out of it.

The wild banshees called again and it called back but the only move it made was to flap its wings a little.It groaned, folded up its wings again and laid down its head.

Trudy eased herself down beside it.It hadn’t tried to eat her yet, and her arm felt better—maybe there was something in banshee spit that was medicinal.

“I’m delirious,” she thought.

Trudy was cold –shocky perhaps?She was hoping she wasn’t bleeding out somewhere and just didn’t know it. She noticed that the banshee threw off a lot of body heat.Trudy eased herself down near it and figured maybe a few minutes of not moving around, maybe a little shut eye and she’d figure out a plan.

She leaned against a rock next to the great beast and closed her eyes.Just for a minute, just to clear her head.As she drifted off, something leathery and heavy draped itself around her.

The banshee had wrapped its good wing around her and pulled her next to it.Then it laid its head down again and slept.

Her“baby” was dying all around her.Trudy clutched the joystick and worked the foot pedals as hard as she could, but the chopper was dying and she along with it.

“Rogue One, going in,”she said into her comlink.“Sorry ,Jake. "

She was terrified, resigned and pissed. Her Samson banged against the rocks of a floating mountain and she was a sitting duck.There was no doubt in her mind what Quaritch was saying to his gunner. “Light her up.” She could imagine those hunter/killer eyes and his gleaming teeth. She could see in her mind's eye a brilliant orange fireball and herself instantly incinerated.

“Asshole,” she muttered.She was wondering if she’d been shot—her adrenalin was pumping so hard, she could have been dead already and not know it. Hell, that’s what happened to Grace Augustine.

She looked around.Split seconds to live. No parachute.A fall of a thousand feet. If she could dive under the oncoming fire, she might be able to land the bird, but the gyros were gone and one of the engines was on fire. If she could only get out of chopper before it blew, where would she go? She took one hand from the failing rudder and grabbed an exopack.

The roots and rocks of a floating mountain were within a hand’s reach of her.Could she do it?

In a desperate move, she blew the cockpit hatch, unbuckled, and heaved herself out of the cockpit.She grabbed some roots and for one heart stopping moment, thought she had only grabbed air.Desperate and blind now by sheer animal terror, she scrambled for the vines and rocks with all four limbs.The chopper fell away from her.It had banged and bumped the floating boulder in its death throes, and the rock had been turned so that Trudy was shielded from the final explosion.

The world turned to a deafening roar .Flames licked at the roots and vines of her rock.Even through her exopack she could smell the fuel and scorched metal.Her chopper disintegrated and fell to the forest floor.

For a moment she thought her exopack had been blown off her face, but that was only her gasping for air in short, ragged, high pitched squeaks.Then she realized was not gasping at all, but sobbing.She was tangled thoroughly in the roots and the vines and was paralyzed with fear.

And then it came to her.

“I’m not dead,” she thought.She said it aloud. “I’m not dead.”

She did not move.The boulder was rotating and she could be exposed again to enemy fire.The blood pounding in her ears drowned out the sound of battle.

She reached for the throat mike throat but there was nothing there.In the mad scramble, it had come off, and her earpiece as well. She was cut off from Jake and the others.

She was beyond knowing what was going on with the battle in the sky and on the ground.She had a sidearm, but she was a thousand feet in the air, clinging to a floating rock.All she could do was see if she could hoist herself up to a less precarious perch and maybe tie in – those rocks tilted and turned something awful.She’d heard that one had turned upside down once and tossed some miners off of it.

She tried to move.She had been clutching the vines with such force, her muscles were cramped.She tried to move again.Something wasn’t working right.Her left arm.

She looked at her arm. “Oh, that’s gonna hurt,” she thought.

There was blood and black soot.She was either burned, shot, or both.Either way,the adrenalin was wearing off and she was not in control of her left arm.

And when she took a breath her ribs hurt.She didn’t think she’d been shot—more like some kind of concussive blow from the explosion. Or maybe she was shot.Or maybe internal injuries from the force of theexplosion when the chopper went up.

Best not to think along those lines, she told herself.d

The rock swayed in the air.She was aware of gunfire, the shrieks of the banshees.Something huge swooped past her.Jake and the Leonopteryx. She wanted to pump a fist in the air and yell in triumph but all she could do was gape in awe.

If she could only get to something less precarious.If she could avoid bleeding to death.

Very slowly, she inched up the face of the boulder.It was gently swaying towards a larger, more stable cliff with a ledge.She was shaking so badly, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to make the move, but she also knew she had to get to a safer position.She used her own weight lik ea kid on a swing set to influence her rock enough to get her into position as it ground against the more stable formation.Using her three remaining limbs, Trudy transferred herself, and crawled, trembling, weeping and cursing, onto a flat, grassy ledge where she rolled as far away from the edge of the cliff as she could and lay on her back cursing heaven, hell, Quaritch, Pandora,and anyone else she could think of.

The pain did not come on slowly – it came on all at once.As the adrenalin wore off, the pain swept over her as a blanket of fire.Her arm.Her ribs.The side of her face.Screaming, “Shit!” a dozen times, she managed to get herself to a sitting position to take a damage report.

Then she realized she was not alone.A sinister, blue and mauve monster hovered nearby, and snapped its half yard long teeth at her.Blood trickled from bullet wounds on the beast’s shoulders. A banshee. A wounded banshee. The rider, a woman, was dead and the banshee was guarding its slain rider. The rider had been strafed with so much machine gun fire one arm was almost severed. Trudy would have thought the banshee would just fly off, but clearly the animal was not capable of flight. It lumbered on its foreclaws and hissed at her.

Trudy Chacon was trapped a thousand feet in the air with an angry, wounded flesh eating monster

But she was alive.For how much longer she had no idea.But for now, she was alive.

It is raining. Ok I am in Southern California, which is a desert, and for those of you in England or Ireland or places where rain means you put on scuba gear to go outside, I am not getting any pity. I get that.

Here in the desert, the earth does not absorbe large amounts of water very well so a slow gentle rain is better. The Navajo call that the mother rain because it nourishes.

Big ass downpours cause flooding, erosion, landslide and just run into the sea or rivers. The Navajo call that a father rain.

We get some serious shit around here every few years-- I mean in 1980-1981, while I was living in Oakland, the place flooded. Landslides. Mudslides taking houses down the hill. A buddy of mine waded in chest deep water with his cat on his head through downtown San Rafael to get to high ground.

Here in San Diego, Lake Hodges dam will flood and overflow. Sea lions swim up the San Dieguito river and hang around Morgan Run golf course Mission Valley -- which is a river valley -- will flood because I don't care how much cement you pour, Mother Nature is bigger than all that.

And people drive goofy-- well most people slow down and are careful.

Some are not.

So. When it stops raining we will piss and moan that we need the rain. When it is raining, we will piss and moan and wonder when it will stop.

01/20/2010

Synopsis: In Part 1, Norm and Trudy wait in the "shack" to see what Jake will do, only to be stunned by his arrival on the great leonopteryx. They realize that they are about to be surrounded by Ometicaya.

Neither Norm nor Trudy knew what to do at this point.Trudy dove back inside the shack to tell Grace, while Norm stood outside, his eyes as big as dinner dishes.He had not been allowed into the camp before when they were at Hometree.Only Grace had been allowed into their midst.He had never even met a Na’vi before this. Now several dozen of them were streaking through the jungle towards him with Jake in the lead.

“Grace!”Trudy leaned over the stricken scientist and pushed a lock of hair from her damp face.Grace’s eyes fluttered open.“Grace! Jake is back!He got him one of those Leonopteryx things.Like the whole tribe is on his side now!”

Trudy heard the rustle of leaves, the sound of many voices.The shadows of the Na’vi crossed the windows of the shack, and many blue faces peered in.Still wearing her exopack, Trudy stepped outside.

Ok.Surrounded by dozens of 10 foot tall blue people.She wondered if this was what children felt like looking up at their parents.She was 5’6” if she stood up tall.Jake was 10 feet.The woman beside him not much shorter. Out of habit Trudy offered her fist and Jake and she knuckle bumped.

"Way to go," she said to him.

“Neytiri, this is my friend Trudy," Jake said. "She flies that---the iron ikran.” By that he meant the chopper.

“You are tsamsiyu?”Neytiri asked.Trudy looked at Jake.

“Warrior,” he translated.

Man he looked different. She had seen his Avatar once, almost 90 days ago. Skinny, awkward. Now this well muscled, determined, mostly naked blue giant was Jake. Or not Jake, because Jake was back in the link machine. Or maybe it was Jake to the nth power.His face was more expressive—beautiful in fact.He was a nice guy – but this blue giant in front of her with the yard long knife in a chest sling – had kind of a fierce sweetness about him that was enhanced by the sheer size and presence of his avatar body. And he really was acting as if he was introducing his girlfriend – well, mate now, according to Grace – to his family.

“Why you do nothing?”Neytiri was clearly a girl with a ‘tude.Trudy liked that. Putting one hand on her hip, she pointed a defiant finger up at Neytiri.

“Listen, lady, you didn't get anywhere with bows and arrows, and I’m one pilot against those Scorpions and a Dragon gunship?They’d have lit me up like a Christmas tree and Jake would still be in the brig.I’m the one that busted him out. " She jerked a thumb towards herself. "If it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t be to- to-" She turned to Norm.

"Norm, what is that frickin thing?”She waved in the general direction of the Tree of Souls and the great leonopteryx.

“Toruk ,”Norm said sheepishly. "Jake is Toruk Makto now -- rider of last shadow."

The Na’vi were surrounding him, inspecting him.At least his Na’vi was almost flawless.They could make fun of everything else about him but not his Na’vi.

“Yeah,”Trudy said, and drew herself up to her full height.“Whatever he said.”

Neytiri appeared to catch about every other word.She cocked her head this way and that as Trudy spoke, but the meaning was not lost on her.

“This true?” she asked Jake. “She free you?”

“Damn straight!”Jake said enthusiastically. “Our asses would be grass right now if Trudy and some of the science guys hadn’t busted us out.That’s when Grace was shot.”His face clouded with worry.“Trudy, how is Grace?”

“Well---she’s alive.”

“Ok, can you -- put a mask on her and bring her out here?”

“See what I can do.”

She disappeared back into the shack and buckled an exopack onto Grace Augustine.

She never got to finish the sentence.Trudy didn’t have those “guns” for nothing.Very gently she shifted Grace to the wheel chair and brought her outside.

By this time, other young women, acolytes of Ewya, had joined them.Neytiri was directing traffic in very brisk Na’vi.They were taking Grace away.Trudy started to protest, but Neytiri said something to her in stern Na’vi.

“They have to get her ready, I guess,”Jake said.“They know about the rebreathers , they won’t take it off.But I have no clue what they’re going to do.”

Another warrior leaned on his bow and scowled at her.Tsu’tey. Trudy recognized him from the pictures Grace had and Jake's description. He was a mean lookin’ mother.He was the big dog now. The clan leader. He was looking at Trudy with his brow thoroughly furrowed.She could not tell if it was admiration or loathing.

“You free Jakesully?” he asked.

“Yeah," Trudy said. "Quaritch – a warrior in our clan put them in a prison – a jail.So we tricked the guards.”

“Jakesully is in there?”Tsu’tey nodded towards the shack.

“Yeah, strange, isn’t it?”

“What he look like?”

Trudy shot a look at Jake.“He has eyebrows,” she thought to herself. “The avatars have eyebrows. The Na’vi don’t.That’s strange.”

“Jake?”she asked.He shrugged his enormous blue shoulders and seemed to slump a little.He nodded.May as well let her tell them.

“That – that chair with the wheels on it?” she said.“That’s Jake’s.He can’t --- he can’t walk.He was wounded and he can’t walk.”

Tsu’tey absorbed this information.He leaned down and looked inside the shack at the pods.

“Is that Jakesully in that mirror?”He pointed to Jake’s monitor.

“Yes.”

Tsu’tey watched Jake's face in the monitor. The eyelids flittering, his facial muscles twitching, his human body reacting to the emotions of the Avatar. Tsu'tey straightened stood up.

“How you can be warrior if you cannot walk?” he asked Jake

“I was wounded,” Jake said.“My back was broken. My legs don't work. There are ways to fix me, but in our world, we don’t take care of our own.If you need help, you’re on your own. “

This puzzled Tsu’tey and he explaind this to some of the others. They murmured amongst thmselves and seemed very displeased.

“You fight for your people and they do not take care of you?”

Tsu'tey asked.

Trudy was still trying to figure Tsu’tey out.Was he angry?If so, at what?”

“Ain’t that a bitch,”she said. “Unless you have a lot of power where we come from, you’re not worth shit.That’s why some of us came out here.At least have something like a life.They just tell you that we’re here to defend the miners because of the animals out here, but they didn’t tell us about the Na’vi and all the rest of this—like destroying Hometree.They lied to get us out here.Some people like Quaritch are having a real good time.Me?I’d stayhere and send the rest home.”

“If we fight, will you fly with Toruk Makto?”Tsu’tey asked. her

“Hell, yes!”

Tsu’tey laughed and the others laughed as well. He said something to them in Na’vi. Some of the women raised their bows in the air and hooted with laughter .

Norm translated it roughly as, “Neytiri saved Jakesully and this woman Trudy saved Jakesully—maybe Jakesully is not such a good warrior unless he has women around!"

Tsu'tey grinned down at her. "I like you Trudy tsamsiyu,” he said.“Toruk Makto and Kunsip Makto.No one will defeat us!”All of them raised their weapons and whooped.

“It is too bad you are not dreamwalker,”Tsu’tey said. “I would choose you.”

For a minute Trudy had no idea what he meant, then it dawned on her.

Tsu’tey was coming on to her.Well – if she were 9 feet tall, he would have been coming on to her.

Trudy’s eye got huge.“Uh—uh---I 'm sorta dating someone already, but thanks.Ya know, I thinkunder other circumstances, that would have been not entirely out of the realm of possibility if I was a dreamwalkeror you weren’t 10 feet tall….”

He threw his head back and laughed at her discomfort.

They were interesting, these Na'vi. Their home for generations was reduced to toothpicks, and the new clan leader, formerly Jake's rival for Neytiri, still found time to make wise cracks. He gave the very clear impression that if he put his mind to it, he could take out Hell's Gat all by himself. He was either stupid, or else a man who would rather die than be pushed around and he didn't care who knew it.

Trudy figured it was the later. He was a man whose home had been blown up, he had been thrust into a leadership role by th death of Neytiri's father, and he wasn't about to wave any white frickin' flags. A bunch of interstellar cockroaches had gotten into his house and he was looking for a way to fumigate.

Multiply that attitude by however many Na'vi there were on the planet and it dawned on her that if the Na'vi banded togther, hell there were at least, what, half a million of them? RDA didn't seem to care to take a head count. To them the Na'vi weren't merely stone age, they were aliens. No one had ever considered that if you pissed them off, they might just shoot back, and sheer numbers alone would overwhelm Hell's Gate.

Wow, she thought. I bet that never occured to Quaritch. I think he's just shit in the wrong guy's cornflakes.

One hurdle – one of many—had been overcome.Jake was back in the clan, and Grace was in their care, although what good that would do for her, at this point Trudy had no idea.